John – Chapter 6:1-15
6:1-4 Introduction – The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. Yet, only the Gospel of John with intent associates the feeding with the Passover (6:4), a fundamental clue to the meaning of the feeding. It begins with a Christological summary of the exodus story: Jesus crosses the sea (Ex 14:10–15:21); the people follow him (Ex 15:22); they see the signs that He did (Ex 15:23-25); He goes up the mountain (Ex 19:1–20:17); He feeds the them with manna from heaven (Ex 16:1-35). Thus, the Bread of Life discourse (6:26-58) illustrates Jesus’ claim that Moses wrote of Him (5:39, 45-47). The Passover places the feeding of the five thousand into the central theme of the entire Gospel: the death of Jesus is the eschatalogical Passover which frees the sinner from death and darkness and brings him into eternal life and light. The two other mentions of the formula “Passover was near” were the cleansing of the temple (2:13) and the final entry into Jerusalem (11:55). 6:5-9 “Where are we to buy bread?” – The is the first mention of the thematic word “bread”, which will govern the narrative through 6:58. Note the parallel in John 12, esp. 12:23-25. Here Jesus initiates the action, unlike the disciples in the Synoptics. “From where” leads us to the answer “from heaven” (6:33). Just as God provided Israel with food in the wilderness so that they would not die (Ex 16:1-35), so now Jesus will provide the crowds with the food necessary for their sustenance, even eternal life. The emphasis of Philip’s skepticism is that Jesus will be the sole source and provider of the food. 6:10-14 “Make the people to lie down” – Jesus is inviting His guests to recline at table. The green grass is an obvious allusion to Psalm 23:2 and the feeding of the people to Ps 23:1, an idea that will return in Jn 10:9. The distribution of the bread and fish (6:11) closely match the terms of the Last Supper (Mt 26:26-27; Mk 14:22-23; Lk 22:19): “take”; “give thanks”; “distribute”. And the people “were filled” matches the manna (Ex 16:2; c.f. Ps 78:25), gathering the fragments with Moses’s command (Ex 16:16). The common connections of language in this narrative between the Lord’s Supper and the Exodus manna are expressed in the first century Christian text, the Didache:…